Some smart guy shows up at the office where I was working last week with one of these things. Now this is primarily a product design shop so these guys talking about a Kindle is a bit like artists talk about public sculpture. Not a very giving crowd, but precise.

We won’t dwell on the odd form of the thing, which tends to induce a slight list to one side. For some unknown reason the body is a wedge, as if referring to the emphasis of a spine. But not a spine of a book, as these lead to parallel surfaces. More like a coil binder that all the pages fell out of. The reference has left the building.



What is especially strange about the Kindle are the controls. The page turning buttons are tall vertical tabs that dominate both sides, which demand you use both hands. But you cannot pick it up without unintentionally turning a page. To quote Phillipe Stark from a video taken at a recent conference  “Immediately when you take it [he picks it up with his left hand and grips it] and you push the button here. Oh shit! I do that [unintentionally turning the page, he passes it to his right hand] and you make the same mistake on the right.”

Here is the clip & it is pretty scathing: gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/12/14/video-philippe-starc.html

The product designers looked at the keyboard and remarked “Well, it must be intentional” Inferring that there is no way it could have been a casting error. So is it meant for thumb operation or ten finger typing? It has a full qwerty keyboard, but it radiuses away from your thumbs like a typesetter who got sleepy. This is novel in a way that even Beatrice Ward would have mercilessly derided - perhaps as “stunt industrial design”.

The conflicts are with the controls and the shape. It assumes that you are holding it, but has no resting place for your thumbs, save for the stunt keyboard. Except that to reach the keys, you would have to have hands the size of Andre the Giant. So you set it down on a table, lean to the right, and type with both hands on what is now the stupidest keyboard in the world.

The problem is the same as a Peter Opsvik’s 1979 Balans kneeling chair. It would be a great idea if we only sat one way. But we are actually very dynamic when we sit and the Balans chair forces you into single position. Opsvik was quick to recognize these issues & by the late eighties had designed chairs that incorporated more sitting positions than anything else on the market [Oposit Balans]. This gives me hope.

The Kindle’s controls, in fact, are not even as good as Opsvik’s initial effort which, however flawed, became iconic. Supporting one mode of use well would be an improvement. The Kindle infers modes of use of which few are possible & none comfortable.

As Phillipe Stark & one of the product designers pointed out, you want to touch the screen to turn the page. The fundamental problem stems from the limitations of the e-screen. The matte surface and high resolution comes at the price of touch. Unfortunately, in the world of early adopters, the bar jumped up to the height of an Ipod last year. Physical controls are now archaic, especially on a device that shouldn’t have them in the first place. The final impulse is to quietly set it down or put it safely in a drawer.